Talk:Asperger syndrome

General comments, IG and AS

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The general tone of the article, is off-putting, even offensive, and seems inaccurate or at least incomplete to the extreme. I am referring here first to the characterisations as disorder and normal intelligence implying an expectation of lower than normal intelligence. There is clearly more to it than that.

There are many examples of people who share a significant number of asperger like social competencies or incompentencies, have tics, and so forth, and yet are of extreme intelligence. Indeed the converse may very well be true that such, along with ADD (attention different) like characteristics, is common among people of extreme intelligence. There are many examples to back this up and I would challenge this group to come up with a list of great geniuses in say physics and/or mathematics, who do not have some of these characteristics.

Generally, the term spectrum may also be inaccurate, though admittedly of common usage. The term collection may be more accurate. We do not know enough about the mechanisms that produces these characteristics to say much about whether the differences among people who share these characteristics are a matter of level or etiology, and there is assuredly more to the subject than implied by the focus on socialization-related deficits.

I would vote to strike the entire article and start again. Lets have a more balanced description.

MN 24.45.13.150 (talk) 16:45, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your notes but in Wikipedia, articles follow what reliable sources say. Reliable sources for this topic are defined in WP:MEDRS. Jytdog (talk) 18:04, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, it took less than 30 seconds to find this: https://tip.duke.edu/node/701. Here is another, http://www2.education.uiowa.edu/belinblank/pdfs/pip.pdf. It is pretty clear that giftedness is important in the study of Aspergers, and vice versa. Yet in this article in Wikipedia, we only learn about aspergers as a developmental disorder and that they may achieve normal intelligence. 24.45.13.150 (talk) 19:37, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Any review articles on the topic? And what change are you proposing? That their is typically normal intelligence is not only accurate but positive as many conditions have lower intelligence. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:06, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The change that I am proposing is to include a section on Aspergers and giftedness and adjust the comment on intelligence to reflect that it is known in gifted people. The point of the 30 second comment is that the subject (Aspergers and giftedness) is well known and aught not be omitted. Both of the cited sources are suitable to make that point for purposes of a discussion and the second lists some refereed work on the subject. Admittedly it is one thing to suggest the task and another to take it on. I feel it would be done best by an active researcher in the topic.

The comment that "there is typically normal intelligence" might be taken as implying that the statistics are known. Is there a cite for that? Keep in mind that there are two aspects to look at, the distribution of intelligence within Aspergers, and the distribution of Aspergers within the gifted. The comment is pejorative in that intelligence in Aspergers clearly spans a range that includes giftedness, as noted in both of my cites.24.45.13.150 (talk) 14:12, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Working in Wikipedia requires rigor; please read WP:MEDRS about the kinds of sources that are OK here. What a thirty second google search finds doesn't get there. Jytdog (talk) 00:50, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

First, WP:MEDRS describes sourcing for an article. This is a discussion. Second, the cites are on a similar level as many others that you find in wikipedia and even in this very article. I appreciate your point however and will try to remember to review the applicable standards if I choose to contribute to the article.24.45.13.150 (talk) 14:12, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

If you want to make a change you'll need MEDRS cites. The two you have provided don't meet MEDRS I don't think. Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

The purpose of this talk page, is to discuss actual changes to the article. This page is not for general discussion of the topic. If you don't have MEDRS sources we are done here... Jytdog (talk) 16:17, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

As noted several times, the point here is that the article omits any mention of the widely known topic of IG with ASD. The discussion topic perhaps should have been more appropriately titled. Regarding rigor, if the article's references 1,2 or 7 meet Wikipedia standards, then the publications from the Aspergers research groups and clinics at Duke and U Iowa probably do also.24.45.13.150 (talk) 05:42, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

A connection between IG and ASD was described as early as 1944, by Asperger, as translated in "Autism and Asperger", U. Frith, 1991, Cambridge University Press. "Superior" and "Very Superior" scores on the WISC-III are reported in 20% of AS subjects in G. Barnhill, T. Hagiwara, B.S. Myles & R. L. Simpson, F. Aut. O. Dev. Dis., 15(3), 146-153 (2000). There is a review of co-occurrence of giftedness and AS in A.E.J. Burger-Veltmeijer, A.E.M.G. Minnaert & E.J. Van Houten-Van den Bosch, Educational Research Review 6, 67–88 (2011), doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2010.10.001. There is also a helpful review of the subject in the doctoral thesis "Educating Gifted Students with Asperger's Syndrome...", by B. S. Horn, 2012, UCF.

IG+ASD is thus a real and well known part of the Aspergers landscape and needs to be included in the article. MN24.45.13.150 (talk) 05:42, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Refs 1, 2, & 7 meet MEDRS standards, because they were issued by governmental health authorities and a professional medical association (see WP:MEDSCI and WP:MEDORG. —PermStrump(talk) 06:29, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the point regarding the deficiency in the article is now well established. Lets not quibble.24.45.13.150 (talk) 13:40, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm having some trouble finding those articles using google scholar for some reason. Anyway, do any of them say that the prevalence of giftedness is higher in people with AS than those without it? Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:01, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

OK, found Barnhill et al. It is a study of some kids with AS, it is not a review. So, it really shouldn't be used. Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:16, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm concerned it would be undue weight most of the citations above we can see that they're pretty out-of-date. The 2011 review noted above is a systematic review of literature on individuals with IG+ASD (not Asperger's btw), so it seems to be MEDRS and the authors say, "We did not find any prevalence figures of IG + ASD". The 2012 thesis, a case study of 3 students with IG+Asperger's. The others are pretty old and even without looking at them, we know they were written before the 2011 article which said that previous literature hasn't produced prevalence rates. —PermStrump(talk) 14:36, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I just looked at Burger-Veltmeijer et al. It doesn't seem to say IG people are any more or less likely to have AS or vice versa. Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:38, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

There is a report where the intake was people with IQ > 130 and 65% were found to have ASD. I think I downloaded it, but in any case I am trying to find it again. Agreed that these are single reports and not reviews. 24.45.13.150 (talk) 15:07, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Found it, in http://dx.doi.org/10.14204/ejrep.35.14109 (Burger-Veltmeijer 2015), counselling dossiers of a group of >130 (mean 138) IQ students in the Netherlands, were evaluated. It was found that many ASD characteristics were not assessed, and in the one area that is well attended to, inadequate reciprocal social interactions, the rate is 65%. I think we should not be ignoring the subject here, even if only to say that the IG+ASD association is long noted, but not well studied. 24.45.13.150 (talk) 15:46, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

You keep bringing primary sources. As mentioned above, we need secondary sources per MEDRS for this content. Please actually read WP:MEDRS, especially the definitions section. The purpose of this board is for discussing improvements to the article, not a general discussion of the topic. I am closing this for now. Please feel free to open a new section, when you have a MEDRS sources for this topic. Best regards Jytdog (talk) 16:52, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Audio version

I have recorded this article. An audio file is attached just before the References section. Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) (talk) 02:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 October 2016

Add {{merge to|High-functioning autism|discuss=Talk:High-functioning autism#Merge discussion |date=June 2016}} to reflect the merge from tag on the High-functioning autism page

TheDracologist (talk) 07:46, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

 Done JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:31, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

There is no consensus to merge so no we do not keep the tags forevers. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:05, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

"Children with AS... have been colloquially called "little professors". Is the source really true?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome#Speech_and_language

"Children with AS may have an unusually sophisticated vocabulary at a young age and have been colloquially called "little professors"". When I looked at the source, the source claims that Hans Asperger called the children he studied "little professors". But if the formal diagnostic criteria for Asperger syndrome didn't even exist yet at that time, is it possible that we could claim that they had AS?

Additionally, it is disputed whether Asperger himself even made that claim. It might have been from the Swedish psychologist Chris Gillberg, written in the book "In a Different Key" https://books.google.com/books/about/In_a_Different_Key.html?id=sdusCAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q=%22little%20professors%22&f=false

Even then, this describes the people that Asperger studied, and not people that have been formally diagnosed with AS.

Ylevental (talk) 22:43, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

The last statement of your argument is utter crap, and quite possibly the most fatuous argument I have yet seen in a decade on WP. That the original cohort of patients studied by Hans Asperger did not have Asperger's because he hadn't yet named the condition? Thank Salk that you are not yourself an epidemiologist, or we'd all be dead. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:18, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Not what I said. We cannot claim that all or even the vast majority of them would meet the criteria for AS, because the criteria was developed much later after his study, and was most likely not entirely based on his study. Ylevental (talk) 23:52, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

In all honesty, there is no reason to remove the 'little professors' quote. It is sourced, and yes, they had AS, just because he hadn't named it yet is hardly a reason. I'm going to revert it back unless we get consensus to go the other way. Dbrodbeck (talk) 23:17, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

In all honesty though, right from the article itself, it states "Fifty years later, several standardizations of AS as a diagnosis were tentatively proposed, many of which diverge significantly from Asperger's original work." From what I know, the "little professors" claim allegedly only applied to four children that he studied. And looking at the source for the diverging claim, it says only "Sixty-eight percent of (Asperger's) sample met ICD-10 criteria for AS". Even so, the converse may be much lower.

And then we would have to decide whether to include the "In a Different Key" reference. Ylevental (talk) 23:52, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Popular press sources use that language. Am not seeing professional sources using it though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:23, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

To be honest, I remember that, but the source currently linked is a professional source. Maybe we could replace it with a popular press source if it is okay? Ylevental (talk) 13:57, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Please revert these edits here by Ylevental as he is inserting his own interpretation. Note that a similar edit to the Hans Asperger article has already been reverted. 101.182.161.253 (talk) 20:16, 18 November 2016 (UTC)